The Life-Long Customer

“The worst thing in the world is if you sell a product to a company and it's the wrong solution, because they are going to be really unhappy, they're going to make you unhappy while you're implementing it.

Don't do it. Make sure that you have qualified that company really well, make sure that they are very happy with your solution. And if they're not, you should try not to sell it to them.

They might thank you, though, years down the line for saying thank you so much for sending me over to that other company. I want to come back to you because I think there's a solution that you have that I really want to implement, or I really admire your integrity for doing that.

It might not be when you're at the company that you're at right now, but you will build a lifelong relationship with that customer because you've said no to them because you've done right.”

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“It's really about this experience, that we are making sure that their customers have, and that consistency of experience is really critical when there are so many different options to choose from. When you were talking about loyalty and how you build lifelong loyalty, we really, as an extension of those small business customers see loyalty as our role to help foster that ongoing, not only initial interaction, but ongoing interaction that you have with your customers, and making sure that everybody is treated exceptionally throughout that process.”

-Rebecca Grimes, Chief Revenue Officer, Ruby

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“It's all about consistency. It's all about not burning yourself out.  It's about pacing yourself to understand, hey, what inputs do I need to put into this to get the outcomes I want? If you know that X amount of calls and emails and deals are going to get you the commission and the sales targets you're looking for, great.  If you want more, that means you have to do 10% more, 20% more.

 For a sales rep, I'd say it's consistency. or leaderships and for folks that are looking to grow in their career, it's about understanding your need to evolve. You need to be okay with change. Over the last 10 years of my career, I've changed to different industries, different verticals, I've sold different products and offerings, and taken on different roles

Even over the last year, we've changed so much in our own business, and the industry has changed. The one constant is change. And so you need to be adaptable. You need to be flexible. You need to understand how to navigate through that space and see three, six, nine, twelve months ahead of it. Otherwise, your blinders will go on. You'll close up. You won't put in the inputs that are going to generate the outputs, and you won't really have any insight on how to navigate through it.”

-Austen Asadorian, VP of Sales, Sevenrooms

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“Put yourselves in their shoes. We all have those friends that just ask, and ask, and ask for something.

You just, you love them, but gosh, you wish they’d just give you something at the same time. 

People want a relationship. That's what we're built on, we're built on connections. Make sure that the connection is not always you asking for something.

What do you want their LTV to be? Then build a system as a marketer and as a company for you to be able to actually take action on that. 

Stop asking for stuff all the time. Give them something for once.”

- Kortney Osborne, VP of Marketing, Get Weave

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"The first roundtable I ever did, there were 2 people and one of them was me. The next one, I think were 3 or 4.

Then it started working. Once it started working, then I started getting complaints from colleagues that I wasn't doing it enough."

- Chris Townsend, Chief Marketing Officer, Wellspring

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“I think that part of it is just being a human, it's not just a business relationship, but in some sense, it's also a personal relationship.

And it's understanding the customer in a sense that You understand what motivates them. You understand what success means to them. And once you understand that, then you can start to understand how you help to ensure their success. I think just being a person and developing personal relationships is really important.

And I think going along with that too, is just being a curious person. And I would say, when I am looking to hire people this is probably the number one.”

- Kathy Sucich, VP of Marketing, Dimensional Insight

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“We are creative people who are data-driven and data-led. We are trying to create inspiration and evoke feelings and emotions and drive engagement. But we also have rigorous methodology and processes that are required for us to be able to engage. And so there's always this push and pull between the creative side of us and the emotional side of us and the technical and data-driven side of us. 

I always remind folks, you want to build a lifelong customer lean on that emotional side, right? Really, when you think about your customer, lean on that emotional side. Targeting and segmentation, all these things are tactics we use but if you think of your customer as a target or a segment, you're not really thinking about them.

You're thinking about yourself. Route all of your work in that individual, in that persona, in the things that matter to them.”

- Peter Guagenti, Chief Marketing Officer, Cockroach Labs

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“Unfortunately, marketing can oftentimes be negatively construed by society as the spin machine but I do think good marketing teams bring a lot of integrity to the function. We are focused on articulating how we can help, what's the value that we can provide, and being real about it. Not trying to fluff up this scenario of how we can help if we can't really help.  I do think companies who have positive brand reputations do in large part because they have integrity behind everything they're doing.

Taking it down a level, I also just love getting to know our customers as individuals, learning about their personal stories, what's led them to where they are.  I can think back to clients that I had from Accenture, which was at the very early part of my career, to other customers that I had engaged with at previous companies, and am grateful that I’m still in touch with a number of them.”

- Chi-Chi Liang, EVP of Marketing, Alloy

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“I think for folks out there it's a very interesting time to join a startup. The way people used to think about startups and small companies, especially in technology and healthcare, was sort of a risky proposition.

Some of the larger, more corporate career opportunities seemed very appealing because there was stability to them. And I think what you're seeing in the market, with the amount of money that's being invested in these companies, the stability in startups now is really inherently baked in very early on, in a lot of cases with some of these companies, because series A series B funding is getting larger and larger and more lucrative.

If you're passionate about something and you really feel like you would prefer to be doing something else, or as you're making a career choice, wanting to join an organization that aligns with your philosophy on what you want out of your career, I would really think about joining a startup.”

- Bill Evans, Chief Marketing Officer, Komodo Health

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“You have to think of the customer journey from the first time they engage with your brand, which may be via paid search, it may be straight to your website and start creating that connection and providing value to them from your first engagement. In terms of educating them and not marketing to them, but actually helping them solve problems and get better at what they're trying to achieve.

So that means serving them content that's highly relevant to them, their business, their needs, who they are. If you start that process long before they become a customer, once they become a customer, it doesn't end there, right?

Once they've trusted you to make an investment in your solution, you want to make sure that they have everything they need to be ridiculously successful with that. There's this continuous education and excellence by helping nurture them along that journey, so that's where you really get that brand love.”

- Melissa Sargeant, Chief Marketing Officer, Litmus

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